India's best-laid plans push Australia into a mind games vortex

When Steve Smith admonishes himself in the nets, he does so by taking his full name, the way others would do to someone else they're angry with. "Nooo Stevennnn...," you'll often hear him scream when not entirely pleased with a shot he's played or the way he's played it. It's unlikely however that he'd have got the chance to do so when he was dismissed cheaply again at the MCG on Monday (December 28) afternoon.

For, he and a few of the Indians, bowler Jasprit Bumrah included, had only belatedly realised that the leg-bail had fallen off after the ball grazed his thigh and deflected towards fine-leg. All Smith could do was look on in amazement before somehow stomping off the field, shaking his head in disbelief.

Marnus Labuschagne is if anything harsher on himself than even Smith. And he never holds back. He'd berated himself with "arms up idiot..." a couple of days out from the Test, when he wasn't chuffed with the way he shouldered arms to a length delivery in the nets.

All Labuschagne could do when he got an outside-edge before being snapped up by Ajinkya Rahane at slip was stay put and admire the skills with which R Ashwin had set him up. Australia's No 3, unlike the No 4, hung around for a few seconds, agonising over his decision to play the drifting Ashwin delivery off the back foot. It then took him nearly a couple of minutes to drag himself off the MCG, and he kept shadow practicing his front-foot defence on his way out.

Neither Smith nor Labuschagne really could have had a genuine gripe with themselves for the way they got out. It wasn't like they'd played a bad shot or made an outright poor decision as batsmen. They had instead been outthought, out-planned and outmanoeuvred by two of India's